Baby steps leaving footprints in the Winter snow

[roastparsnipsandbrusselsprouts]

Trying hard to give a feck. I did a ready meal for DS5 with crunchie veggie stick and orange juice so . DH will be having something from the freezer with salad left over from yesterday.

I normally cook something over the weekend and freeze portions for quick meals during the week. Xmas has put this out of wack. I do things like soup, chicken curry, pasta sauce with loads of grated veg and mince (I can add more onion, green pepper, turmeric, chilli and kidney beans to make chilli from the freezer). If I make chili from scratch, I use braising steak. I have my normal fixings on my online favourites. My meal plan is pretty rubbish - good job the family eat leftovers without complaint:

Sun: Roast/ snags and colcannon/lamb and dauphinoise
Mon: see Sun
Tue: pasta meat sauce
Wed: curry
Thur: pasta, pesto and savoy cabbage
Fri: frozen veg, fish fingers and beans for DS and takeaway for us again
Sat: fajitas/steak and homemade wedges/ new recipe if I cba.

I'm going to look for a keema/ mince curry recipe cos I have meat/ quorn to use. We really need to eat frozen party food cos the freezer is full.

arse - all that careful planning has gone to pot because DH ate we have run out of eggs. I can't even do anything toast based for the kids tea as DH ate we have run out of bread too. We do have some left-over baking potatoes in the fridge so I am off to make potato cakes with (frozen) spinach & cheese. I generally try not to make too much of an effort on a tuesday as DD1 usually eats a HUGE lunch at the GPs & isn't interested in eating any tea!

Eggrules we had frozen party food for lunch. The dcs were and then

I bet that will be what they tell their teachers after the holidays - not about the homemade curry or lovingly cooked roasts or lasagnes, it will be the party food for lunch!

bessie dh has a habit of doing that sort of thing here too. The one that had me really though was the tin of chick peas We had to have kidney beans in our curry, which was actually nicer than it sounds.

Yesterday, DS told MIL that he didn't have any lunch. He had baked potato with beans/cheese and apple crumble/custard. He wanted a cheese sandwich. Toad.

I don't eat meat - need to make a nice veggie curry. We have Indian snack things that I will put with curry tomorrow. What goes with assorted mini steak pies, spring rolls and tempura prawns? Or is that a trick question; as in they go together?

My DC are quite fussy. DS won't eat most things potato apart from chips or pasta and DD is at the "I don't want dinner" age. This is what she says most nights when I put dinner on the table.
DH and I will eat most things although I am a bit fussy when it comes to meat and sea food.

I would like to try and learn some basic meals like cottage pie, stew, lasagne etc.
I guess it's just a case of pick something from a recipe book and go buy the ingredients.

Sorry to bore anyone, I suppose I should be posting about this in the food topic.

For me, good meal plan is part of having a streamlined routine.

Black Give it a try and hopefully you can freeze it to make it worth the effort.

Well everyone has to make a meal at night BlackCat so I reckon you are fine here.

I may be weird but I enjoy figuring these things out.

I make a cottage pie using the mince from Jamie's mince pie with mashed potato on top and bung it in the oven.

Noticed you were looking at my austerity housekeeping blog - very flattered!

On there are cleaning schedules and techniques, weekly menu plans and linked shopping lists, timings for getting the family out the house in the morning, and some posts on decluttering so your rooms are fit for purpose. All hopefully helpful for flylady fans, etc. Look in the category lists for sections on each of these things. And do comment if you would like additional posrs as I can do something special if requested.

Ooh! Thanks Boffin I am still reading it - there is a lot there to look at.

It is a bit of a passion for me, I must admit. I started it in February and I really enjoy doing it.

Interestingly, my hit rate has gone completely mental since around Christmas time. I think people are starting to be really worried about finance and organisation now. I am thinking of turning it into a Kindle book as well in case this appeals to people who don't want to walk around the supermarket with their laptop open LOL!

Is there a best place to start Boffin? I am jumping all over the place.

What are you most interested in?

Early night so clothes/lunches are ready and sink shined.

"D" H has rinsed a glass a put it on the draining board?

Have bookmarked Boffin's blog.

I am scunnered but due to socialising not cleaning! Between a 3 year olds birthday party and sitting chatting to my friend eating her lovely banana bread and drinking lattes, I've not done much cleaning so might try and do an odd 15 minutes here and there tonight.

Boffin can you do another link to your blog please? My eyes are painted on today and I can't see it :)

Boffin I don't know about everyone else but it is the traditional season for reining in the budget.

I am trying to reduce the food bills. I meal plan which helps and we are veggies which also helps. Ds needs a very high calorie diet though, whereas the rest of us need low fat healthy eating.

We are all trying to build good housekeeping habits without spending our whole lives cleaning and decluttering etc.

evening ladies.im so chuffed with myself having manages to referee 4 kids fighting allday and still get some jobs done!!!!!i normally collapse in a heap after tea and the kids gone to bed but washed up and shined sink so kitchen will be reasonable place to be when i get up tomorrow.looking forward to getting a couple of hours uninterupted cleaning tomorrow.hurrah for schooldays

Hello all.

My day hasn't been as productive as I'd have liked, but I did clean the washing machine with DS's help and do a maintenance wash. Now I an get going on the washing backlog.

Boffin, if you have any ideas about how to get faster at stuff (everything!) that would make a great blog post. Everything (housework & non-housework) seems to take me twice as long as everyone else I know, even if I'm organised and have a good system going.

BlackCat, our meal planning involves me looking at the list of dinners I know I can cook and picking one. Occasionally I make something new, but it usually goes wrong and takes way too long. 'Proper' cooking from a recipe book is something I could only manage about once a week. We aim to eat leftovers 2 or 3 times a week. I won't cook 'properly' unless it makes at least 2 meals' worth of food.

Lunches are a struggle as I rarely have many good ideas and time always seems short.

I make labour-intensive snacks (cakes, cheesy biscuits for DS etc) but I make industrial quantities and put them in the freezer appropriately packaged up (a few of DS's biscuits wrapped in foil, cakes pre-sliced).

I buy fresh veg twice a week at the arket, but it often lasts for a week or even two. It's much better quality than the supermarket IMO (and about a third of the price).

I've just put some laminated sheets on my fridge so I can list the veg we have so I don't forget about what we've got before it goes off.

Hi Angels

I like the idea everyone is going with of stock taking what they have and keeping a list of it. Seems like a very sensible plan.

OK people, for starters try:

Cleaning schedules

How to get out of the house quicker in the mornings

Feeding the tribe
Sunday night organisation

Weekly menu plan

Shopping list

Weekend cook fest

Sorry, missed a link there ...

Sunday night organisation

... and some more ...

Love your rubber gloves

Bathing Beauty

Can I just recommend The Family Meal cookbook for all austerity fans, as it is based on pretty economical ingredients if you shop around, based on restaurant meals for the catering and waiting staff, and more importantly, IT HAS PICTURES OF HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING!! Which means it is really brilliant at helping you improve cooking and get more flavour out of everything. I got it for my birthday and I never looked back!

Morning all!

Do we really need to get dressed to shoes before starting day? It just feels so unnatural with my routine with Toddler and when I do get dressed before up TS looks at me a bit funny. Half of the fun is having breakfast in our jammies and a cuddle while we're both still in them and warm and snuggly. Or maybe it's just me.

Sink shining got pushed back again yesterday/last night poorly husband had to take priority but am determined today. Also have a lovely to do list (which I do up the night before and honestly do try to make it realistic and include Toddler activities such as groups and fun art projects or playground time).

Still sounds very windy and cold out there. I'm not opposed to going outside when it's cold (I don't like cold, never have, but we have warm gear to dress up in) but it's the wind and wet I can't be bothered with. Yes, I know I live in England now and should just suck it up but if I get soaked outside I'm cold for two days. Toddler, on the other hand, thinks the wind (and rain) is funny and loved our getting caught in a downpour yesterday.

Morning all, Today is Babystep 4
Babystep4

Thanks everyone for you hints and tips about food etc.

Hi BoffinMum, I remember you from when I did the back to basics thread.
Thanks for those links. You seem very organised.

I will be back later on as it is a school morning here so I better get cracking on getting everyone ready.